


When the Fall Is All There Is

by jusrecht



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which they did not win against Byakuran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Fall Is All There Is

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt: _Dino - always; “the exit”._

Every night, Romario prayed for the dawn of a bloodless day.

His prayers nowadays consisted more of meandering thoughts than carefully chosen words; the latter had proven just as worthless, at the high cost of unwelcome articulation in such closed space. He thought of blue skies instead, trimmed with frills of white clouds, spreading and limitless. He thought of a jagged shoreline, curving inwards, the sad song of waves in his ears, the sharp smell of a summer sea as he breathed life and freedom, back to the barren, rocky beach of his dying childhood. A life of retirement, contemplation, contentment— _peace._

But these were not prayers. They were not even wishes. So long trapped between four walls, misery and despair had sucked him dry. Wishes belonged to those who stood at the brink of defeat. Romario did not consider defeat. His brink was annihilation. Five thousands had been reduced to two hundreds, half of them maimed beyond repair, mere limbs stitched together lest the life seeped away. _How our glory may fade._

Tonight he prayed—not for wishes, not even for a wish to wish. In this small, cramped hideout which smelled of death and rotting flesh, Romario prayed for common sense.

Dino sat in silence under a pool of weak, yellow light, bent over a blueprint which had cost him fifty lives and more. His sunken eyes followed angled curves and perpendicular lines, reading each step of a route mapped in his head. Two boxes and three rings were lined up on the floor, next to his coiled whip, all that remained of a treasure horde. They were a sinking craft, and their captain, consumed by guilt, bereft of reason in the face of his failure, now sought to challenge the crushing gale barehanded.

Romario prayed for common sense, just enough to turn Dino’s eyes from the blueprint and make him see as the folly it was. When yet again his prayer went unanswered, desperation lent a voice, roughened by long want of water.

“It is madness, Boss.”

A pair of fever-bright eyes looked at him. Romario’s heart twisted at the sight; barely thirty-two, and yet one could read the history of a lifetime in them, convoluted lines and lingering shadows.

“Why?” his response was a slow drawl, thick with apathy. “It’s just as Reborn said. The best stratagem against overwhelming opponents: stealth and unpredictability.”

Romario frowned. He was speaking with a stranger wearing the logic of a madman. “You should remain in hiding and wait.” Still he argued. “That is the best stratagem against overwhelming opponents.”

“They will find me. You don’t think they will ever let me live, do you?”

“Then what’s the difference?” Desperation sank into his voice like sharp, greedy teeth. Romario clenched his own, struggling for control; he had been desperate for a very long time. “Storming into their base to try and steal the rings is suicide—it’s _worse_ than suicide.”

Dino’s eyes softened, but otherwise remained unmoved. Romario thought he could see the ghosts clinging to his arms, riding on his shoulders, clawing at his beating heart. Five thousands to two hundreds. God.

“I have to try,” his voice was quiet, subdued, “even if it’s for one last time.”

“There is no hope.”

“No,” Dino answered truthfully, but then he smiled, and for a moment there was a flash of that dazzling golden boy he once had been, engaging and utterly incorrigible. “But you know how bad I am at giving up.”

“Why?” Romario could feel the stinging warmth which might be tears in his eyes. “Nothing should matter so much, not above life.”

His boss grinned now, no longer a wraith of his former self. “ _My you chivalric fool, as if the way one fell down mattered._ ”

Romario started. They were words from better times, echoing in the depth of his soul, buried, almost forgotten but not. He found the rest just as easily, roaming at the tip of his tongue. “ _When the fall is all there is,_ ” the words flowed, glided, effortless, “ _it matters._ ”

“You taught me that,” Dino pointed out, solemn and yet absurdly triumphant. “At least it was you who forced me to watch that movie.”

He had not forgotten—the memory of a pouting thirteen-year-old boy and his vehement refusal to spend a perfectly beautiful day watching ‘such a boring movie’, as Dino had put it, that lifetime ago. A rare, reluctant smile was wrestled from some forgotten depth of his heart, so filled of late with dug graves and dead faces of fallen comrades.

“I see now that it was a mistake,” he said dryly.

“But it wasn’t,” Dino remonstrated. “Not the way I see it, anyway.”

Romario sighed. “You have always been sentimental, Boss. Far too much than what is good for you.”

“I know,” Dino admitted, smile withering as he glanced at the blueprint spread at his feet. There was a faraway look in his eyes which spoke of debts unpaid, a trace of lingering self-hatred for his weakness, powerless to do anything for the people he loved. But when he raised his eyes, there was no hint of a madman in him; only sadness could breed resolve so unshakable, not anger, not madness.

“Will you come with me, Romario?”

The answer never changed, for that golden boy or this man who had anchored his loyalty so firmly it was impossible for him to do anything else. The familiar warmth stung his eyes anew, and he realised it was right: the way one fell down did matter.

“To the end of the earth and beyond,” he answered. He knew where he stood and it was more than enough.

  
 **  
_End_   
**

**Author's Note:**

> The ‘such a boring movie’ mentioned above is _The Lion in Winter_. The quotes also came from the movie.


End file.
